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University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


GREAT  SPEECH, 


DELIVERED  IN   NEW  YORK  CITY, 


B  Y 


HENRY  WAED  BEECHER, 


ON    THE 


Conflict  of  Northern  and  Southern  Theories 


OF    MAN   AND    SOCIETY 


January  14,  1855. 


ROCHESTER: 

STEAM  PRESS  OF  A.  STRONG  &  CO.,  COR.  OF  STATE  AND  BUFFALO  STREETS. 

1855. 


U.  C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


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OF    MAN    AND    SOCIETY. 


The  Eighth  Lecture  of  the  Course  before  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  was  delivered,  January  14, 
1655,  at  the  Tabernacle,  New  York,  by  the  Rev. 
HENRY  WAUD  BEECHER.  The  subject,  at  the 
present  time,  is  one  of  peculiar  interest,  as  touch- 
ing the  questions  of  Slavery  and  Know-Nothing" 
ism,  and,  together  with  the  popularity  of  the  lec- 
turer, drew  together  a  house-full  of  auditors. 

There  were  a  number  of  gentlemen  of  distinc- 
tion, occupying  seats  on  the  rostrum  —  among 
•whom  were  the  Hon.  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  James 
Mott,  of  Philadelphia,  and  Mr.  Dudley,  of  Buffalo. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  introduced  to  the  audience  by 
Mr.  OLIVER  JOHNSON,  who  said: 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  The  speaker  who  oc- 
cupied this  platform  on  Tuesday  evening  last,  in 
the  course  of  his  remarks  upon  the  wide  degene- 
racy of  the  American  Clergy  on  the  Slavery 
Question,  reminded  us  that  there  was  in  a  Brook- 
lyn pulpit,  A  MAX.  We  thought  you  would  be  glad 
to  see  and  hear  such  a  rara  avis,  and  therefore 
have  besought  him  to  come  hither  to-night  to  in- 
struct us  by  his  wisdom  and  move  us  by  his  elo- 
quence. I  trust  that,  whatever  you  may  think 
of  some  other  parts  of  the  lecture  of  WENDELL 
PHILLIPS,  you  will,  when  this  evening's  perfor- 
mance is  over,  be  ready  at  least  to  confess  that  in 
•what  he  said  of  the  Brooklyn  preacher  he  was  not 
more  eulogistic  than  truthful. 

MR.  BEECHER,  on  presenting  himself,  was  re- 
ceived with  loud  and  hearty  applause.  He  spoke 
as  follows : 

The  questions  which  have  provoked  discussion 
among  us  for  fifty  years  past  have  not  been  ques- 
tions of  fundamental  principles,  but  of  the  appli- 
cation of  principles  already  ascertained.  Our  de- 
bates have  been  between  one  way  of  doing  a 
thing  and  another  way  of  doing  it — between  liv- 
ing well  and  living  better;  and  so  through,  it  has 
been  a  question  between  good  and  better.  We 
have  discussed  policies,  not  principles.  In  Eu- 
rope, on  the  other  hand,  life-questions  have  agi- 


tated men.  The  questions  of  human  rights,  of 
the  nature  and  true  foundations  of  Government, 
are  to-day,  in  Europe,  where  they  were  with  our 
fathers  in  1630. 

In  this  respect,  there  is  a  moral  dignity,  and 
even  grandeur,  in  the  struggles,  secretly  or  open- 
ly going  on  in  Italy,  Austria,  Germany,  and 
France,  which  never  can  belong  to  the  mere 
questions  of  mode  and  manner  which  occupy  us 
—boundary  questions,  banks,  tariffs,  internal  im- 
provements, currency, •  all  very  necessary  but  sec- 
ondary topics.  They  touch  nothing  deeper  than 
the  pocket.  In  this  respect,  there  would  be  a 
marked  contrast  between  the  subjects  which  oc- 
cupy us,  and  the  grander  life-themes  that  dignify 
European  thought,  were  it  not  for  one  subject — 
Slavery.  THAT  is  the  ONLY  question,  in  our  day 
and  in  our  community,  full  of  vital  struggles  turn- 
ing  upon  fundamental  principles. 

If  Slavery  were  a  plantation -question,  concern- 
ing only  the  master  and  the  slave,  disconnected 
from  us,  and  isolated — then,  though  we  should  re- 
gret it,  and  apply  moral  forces  for  its  ultimate  - 
remedy,  yet,  it  would  be,  (as  are  questions  of  the 
same  kind  in  India  or  South  America,  )  remote, 
constituting  a  single  element  in  that  globe  of 
darkness  of  which  this  world  is  the  core,  and 
which  Christianity  is  yet  to  shine  through  and 
change  to  light.  But  it  is  not  a  plantation-ques- 
tion. It  is  a  national  question.  The  disputes 
implied  by  the  violent  relations  between  the  own- 
er and  the  chattel  may  only  morally  touch  us. — 
But  the  disputes  between  the  masters  and  the 
Government,  and  between  the  Government,  im- 
pregnaced  with  Slavery,  and  the  Northern  citizen 
these  touch  us  sharply,  and  if  not  wisely  met,  will  /,< 
yet  scourge  us  with  thorns !  Indeed,  I  cannot 
say  that  I  believe  that  New  England  and  the 
near  North  will  be  affected  locally,  and  immedi- 
ately by  an  adverse  issue  of  the  great  nationa  1 
struggle  now  going  on.  But  the  North  will  bj 
an  utterly  dead  force  in  the  American  nation . 


Snc  .-.v-i'il  be  rohca  up  in  a  corner,   like  a   cocoon! 
waiting  for  its  transmigration.     The  whole  North  i 
will  become  provincial ;   it  will  be  but  a  fringe  to 
a  nation  whose  heart  will  beat  in  the  South. 

But  New-England  was  not  raised  up  by  Divine 
Providence  to  play  a  mean  part  in  the  world's  af- 
fairs. 

Remember,  that  New-England  brought  to 
America  those  principles  which  every  State  in 
the  Union  has  more  or  lees  thoroughly  adopted. 
New-England  first  formed  those  institutions 
which  liberty  requires  for  beneficient  activity  J 
and  from  her,  both  before  and  since  tbe  Revolu- 
tion, they  have  been  copied  throughout  the  Land. 
Having  given  to  America  its  ideas  and  its  insti- 
tutions, 1  think  the  North  is  bound  to  stand  by 
them. 

Until  1800,  the  North  had  distinctive  national 
influence,  and  gave  shape,  in  due  measure,  to  na- 
tional policy,  as  she  had  before  to  national  insti- 
tutions. 

Then  she  began  to  recede  before  the  rising  of 
another  power.  For  the  last  fifty  years,  upon  the 
national  platform  Lave  stood  arrayed  two  cham- 
pions in  mortal  antagonism — New-England  and 
the  near  North— representing  personal  freedom, 
civil  liberty,  universal  education,  and  a  religious 
spirit  which  always  sympathises  with  men  more 
than  with  Governments. 

The  New-England  theory  of  Government  has 
always  been  in  its  element— first,  independent 
men;  then  democratic  townships;  next  republi- 
can States,  and,  in  the  end,  a  Federated  Union  of 
Republican  States.  All  her  econo tries,  her 
schools,  her  policy,  her  industry,  her  wealth,  her 
intelligence, have  been  at  agreement  with  her  the- 
ory and  policy  of  Government.  Yet,  New-Eng- 
land, strong  at  home,  compact,  educated,  right- 
minded  ;  has  gradually  lost  influence,  and  the 
•whole  North  with  her. 

The  Southern  League  of  States,  have  been  held 
together  by  the  cohesive  power  of  Common 
Wrong.  Their  iudustry,  their  policy,  their  whole 
interior,  vital  economy,  have  been  at  variance  with 
the  apparent  principles  of  their  own  State  Gov- 
ernments, and  with  the  National  Institutions  under 
which  they  exist.  They  have  stood  upon  a  nar- 
row basis,  always  shaking  under  them,  without 
general  education,  without  general  wealth,  with- 
out diversified  industry.  And  yet  since  the  year 
1800,  they  have  steadily  prevailed  against  Repre- 
sentative New-England  and  the  North.  The 
South,  the  truest  representation  of  Absolutism 
under  republican  forms,  is  mightierin  our  Nation- 


al Councils  and  Policy  to-day  than  New-Eng- 
land, themother  and  lepresentative  of  true  re- 
publicanism and  the  whole  free  North. 

And  now  it  has  come  to  pass  that,  in  the  good 
providence  of  God,  another  opportunity  has  been 
presented  to  the  whole  North  to  reassert  her 
place  and  her  influence,  and  to  fill  the  institutions 
of  our  country  with  their  original  and  proper  blood 
I  do  not  desire  that  she  should  arise  and  put  on 
her  beautiful  garments,  because  she  is  my  moth- 
er, and  your  mother;  not  because  her  hills  wore 
the  first  which  my  childhood  saw,  that  has  never 
since  beheld  any  half  so  dear;  nor  fiom  any  sordid 
ambition,  that  she  should  be  great  in  this  world's 
greatness;  nor  from  any  profane  wish  to  abstract 
from  the  rightful  place  and  influence  of  any 
State,  or  any  section  of  our  whole  country.  But  I 
think  that  God  sent  New-England  to  these  shores 
as  his  own  messenger  of  mercy  to  days  and  ages, 
that  have  yet  iar  to  come  ere  they  are  born!  She 
has  not  yet  told  this  Continent  all  that  is  in  her 
heart.  She  has  sat  down  like  Bunyan's  Pilgrim 
and  slept  in  the  bower  by  the  way,  and  where 
she  slept  she  has  left  her  roll — God  grant  that 
she  hath  not  lost  it  there  while  she  slumbered! 

By  all  the  love  that  I  bear  to  the  cause  of  God, 
and  the  glory  of  his  Church,  by  the  yearnings 
which  1  have  for  the  welfare  of  the  human  kind, 
by  all  the  prophetic  expectations  which  I  have  of 
the  destiny  of  this  land,  God's  Almoner  of  Liber, 
ty  to  the  World,  I  desire  to  see  Old  Representa- 
itve  NewEngland,  and  the  affiliated  North,  rouse 
up  and  do  their  first  works. 

Is  it  my  excited  ear  that  hears  an  airy  phan- 
tasm whispering  ?  or  do  I  hear  a  solemn  voice 
crying  out,  ."Arise?  Shine?  thy  light  is  come,  and 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  arisen  upon  thet  I " 

I  am  quite  aware  that  the  subject  of  Slavery 
has  been  regarded,  by  many,  as  sectional;  and  the 
agitation  of  it  in  the  North  needless,  and  injuri- 
ous to  our  peace  and  the  country's  welfare. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  evils,  the  agitation 
has  only  come  through  men,  not  from  them.  It 
is  of  God.  It  is  the  underheaving  of  Providence. 
Mariners  might  as  well  blame  you  for  the  swiug 
and  toss  of  their  craft  when  tides  troop  in  or  march 
out  of  your  harbor,  as  us,  for  heaving  to  that  tide 
which  God  swells  under  us.  Tides  in  the  ocean 
and  in  human  affairs  are  from  celestial  bodies  and 
celestial  beings.  The  conflict  which  is  going  on 
springs  from  causes  as  deep  as  the  foundations  of 
our  institutions.  It  will  goon  to  a  crisis; its  set- 
tlement will  be  an  era  in  the  world's  history, 
.either  of  advance  or  of  decline. 


I  wish  to  call  your  patient  attention  to  the  real 
nature  of  this  contest.  It  is, 

The  conflict  between  Northern   theories  and 
Southern  theories  of  man  and  of  Society. 

There  have  been,  from  the  earliest  period  of  the 
•world,  two  different,  and  oppugnent,  doctrines  of 
man — his  place,  rights,  duties  and  relations.  And 
the  theory  of  man  is  always  the  starting  point 
of  all  other  theories,  systems,  and  Governments 
which  divide  the  world. 

v  Outside  of  a  Divine  and  Authoritative  Revlea- 
tion,  men  have  had  but  one  way  of  estimating  the 
value  of  man.  He  was  to  ihera  simply  a  creature 
;  of  time,  and  to  be  judged  in  the  scientific  method, 
,  by  Ins  phenomena.  The  Greeks  and  the  Romans* 
had  no  better  way.  They  didvnot  know  enough 
of  his  origin,  his  nature,  or  his  destiny,  to  bring 
these  into  account,  in  estimating  man.  Accord- 
ingly they  could  do  no  better  than  to  study  him  in 
las  developments  and  rank  him  by  the  POWER 
which  he  manifested.  Now  if  a  botanist  should 
describe  a  biennial  plant,  whose  root  and  stem  be- 
longto  one  season,  whose  blossom  and  fruit  belong 
to  another,  as  if  that  were  the  whole  of  it  which 
the  first  year  produced,  he  would  commit  the 
same  mistake  which  the  heathen  idea  of  man  com- 
mits in  measuring  and  estimating  a  being  whose 
true  life  comes  hereafter,  by  the  developments 
which  he  makes  in  only  this  world. 

From  this  earthly  side  of  man  springs  the  most 
important  practical  results.  For  the  doctrine  of 
man,  simply  as  he  is  in  this  life,  logically  deduces 
Absolutism  and  Aristocracy. 

If  the  power  of  prodncing  effects  is  the  criterion 
of  value,  the  few  will  always  be  the  most  valuable 
and  the  mass  relatively,  subordinate,  and  the' 
weak  and  lowest  will  be  left  helplessly  worthless. 

And  the  mass  of  all  the  myriads  that  do  live, 
are  of  no  more  account  than  working  animals; 
and  there  is,  no  such  a  theory,  no  reason,  a  priori; 
why  they  should  not  be  controlled  by  superior 
men,  and  made  to  do  that  for  which  they  seem  the 
best  fitted — Work  and  Drudgery!  Only  long  ex- 
periment could  teach  a  doctrine  contrary  to  the 
logical  presumption  arising  from  weekness. 
There  could  be  no  doctrine  of  human  rights.  It 
would  be  simply  a  doctrine  of  human  forces. 
Rigid  would  be  a  word  as  much  out  of  place  as 
among  birds  and  beasts.  Authority  would  go 
with  productive  greatness,  as  gravity  goes  with 
mass  in  matter.  The  whole  chance  of  Right,  and 
the  whole  theory  of  Liberty,  springs  from  that 
part  of  man  that  lies  beyond  this  life. 

As  a  material  creature,  man  ranks  among  phys- 
ical forces.  Rights  come  from  his  spiritual  nature  • 


The  body  is  of  the  earth,  and  returns  to  earth, 
and  is  judged  by  earthly  measures.  The  soul  is 
of  God,  and  returns  to  God,  and  is  judged  by 
Divine  estimates.  And  this  is  the  reason  why  a 
free,  unobstructed  Bible  always  works  toward  hu- 
man rights.  It  is  the  only  basis  on  which  the 
poor,  the  ignorant,  the  weak,  the  laboring  masses 
can  entrench  against  oppression.  .• 

What,  then,  is  that  theory  of  man  which 
Christianity  gives  forth? 

It  regards  man  not  as  a  perfect  thing,  put  into 
life  to  blossom  and  die,  as  a  perfect  flower  doth. 
Man  is  a  seed,  and  birth  is  planting.  He  is  in 
life  for  cultivation,  not  exhibition  ;  he  is  here 
chiefly  to  be  acted  on,  not  to  be  characteristically 
an  agent.  For,  though  man  is  also  an  actor,  he 
is  yet  more  a  recipient.  Though  he  produces  ef- 
fects, he  receives  a  thousand  fold  more  than  he 
produces.  And  he  is  to  be  estimated  by  his  ca- 
pacity of  receiving,  not  of  doing.  He  has  his 
least  value  in  what  he  can  DO  ;  it  all  lies  in  what 
he  is  capable  of  having  done  TO  him.  The  eye,  the 
ear,  the  tongue,  the  nerve  of  touch,  are  all  simple 
receivers.  The  understanding,  the  affections,  the 
moral  sentiments,  all,  are  primarily  and  charac- 
teristically, recipients  of  influence  ;  and  only 
secondarily  agents.  Now,  how  different  is  the 
value  of  ore,  dead  in  its  silent  waiting-places, 
from  the  wrought  blade,  the  all  but  living  engine,  # 
and  the  carved  and  curious  utensil ! 

Of  how  little  value  is  a  ship  standing  helpless 
on  the  stocks— but  half-built,  and  yet  building—- 
to one  who  has  no  knowledge  of  the  ocean,  or  of 
what  that  helpless  hulk  will  become  the  moment 
she  slides  into  her  element,  and  rises  and  falls  upon 
the  flood  with  joyous  greeting ! 

The  value  of  an  acorn  is  not  what  it  is,  but 

what  it  shall  be  when  nature  has  brooded  it,  and 

brought  it  up,  and  a  hundred  years  have  sung 

I  through   its    branches   and    left  their  strength 

there  ! 

He,  then,  that  judges  man  by  what  he  can  do, 
judges  him  in  the  seed.    We  must  see  him  through 
some  lenses — we  must  prefigure  his  immortality. 
While,  theTi,  his  industrial  value  in  life  must  de- 
pend on  what  he  can  do,  we  have  here  the  begin- 
|  ning  of  a  moral  value  which  bears  no  relation  to 
i  his  power,  but  to  his  future  destiny. 

This  view  assumes  distinctness  and  intansity, 
when  we  add  to  it  the  relationship  which  subsists 
between  man  and  his  Maker. 

This  relationship  begins  in  the  fact  that  we  are 
created   in  the  divine  image;  that  we  are  con- 
nected with  God,  therefore,  not  by  Government 
i  alone,  but  by  nature. 


6 


This  initial  truth  is  made  radiant  with  meaning, 
by  the  teaching  of  Cristianity  that  every  human 
being  is  dear  to  God  :  a  teaching  which  stands 
upon  that  platform,  buiit  high  above  all  human 
deeds  and  histories,  the  advent,  incarnation,  pas- 
sion, and  death  of  Chris',  as  a  Savior  of -men. 

The  race  is  a  brotherhood;  God  is  the  Father, 
Love  is  the  law  of  this  great  human  common- 
wealth, and  Love  knows  no  servitude.  It  is  that 
-which  gilds  with  liberty  whatever  it  touches. 

One  more  element  to  human  liberty  is  con- 
tributed by  Cristianity,  in  the  solemn  develop- 
ment of  man's  accountability  to  God,  by  which 
condition  hereafter  springs  from  pure  character 
here. 

However  heavy  that  saying  is,  every  one  of  us 
shallot;*?  an  account  of  himself  before  God — in  it 
is  the  life  of  the  race. 

You  cannot  present  man  as  a  subject  of  Divine 
government,  held  responsible  for  results,  compar- 
ed with  which  the  most  momentous  earthly  deeds 
are  insignificant,  plied  with  influences  accumulat- 
ing from  eternity,  and  by  powers  which  though 
they  begin  on  earth  in  the  cradle,  gentle  as  a 
mother's  voice  singing  lullaby,  go  on  upward,  tak- 
ing every  thing  as  they  go,  till  they  reach  the 
whole  power  of  God;  and  working  out  results 
that  outlast  time  and  the  sun,  and  revolve  forever 
in  flaming  circuits  of  disaster,  or  in  sacred  circles 
of  celestial  bliss;  you  cannot  present  man  as  the 
center  and  subject  of  such  an  august  and  eternal 
drama,  without  giving  him  something  of  the 
grandeur  which  resides  in  God  himself,  and  in  the 
spheres  of  immortality ! 

Who  shall  trifle  with  such  a  creature,  full  bound 
upon  such  an  errand  through  life,  and  swelling 
forth  to  such  a  destiny?  Clear  the  place  where 
he  stands?  —give  him  room  and  help,  but  no  hin- 
derance,  as  he  equips  for  eternity  .'—loosen  the 
bonds  of  man,  for  God  girds  him! — take  off  all 
impediments,  for  it  is  his  life  and  death  an d  strug- 
gle for  immortality ! 

That  this  effect  of  accountability  to  God  was 
felt  by  the  inspired  writers,  canno£H>e  doubtful 
to  any  who  weigh  such  language  as  this  : 

"  So  then  every  one  of  us  shall  give  account  of 
himself  to  God.  Let  us  not,  therefore  judge  one 
another  any  more,  but  judge  this  rather,  Utat  no 
man  put  a  stumbling  block,  or  an  occasion  to  fall 
in  his  brother's  way." 

By  making  man  important  in  the  sight  of  God, 
he  becomes  sacred  to  his  fellow.  The  more 
grand  and  far-reaching  are  the  divine  claims,  the 
greater  is  our  conception  of  the  scope  and  worth 


of  being.  Human  rights  become  respected  in 
the  ratio  in  which  human  responsibility  is  felt. 
Whatever  objections  men  may  hold  to  Puritan- 
ism—  their  theory  since  the  days  of  St.  Augustine 
has  constantly  produced  tendencies  to  liberty 
and  a  prevalent  belief  in  the  natural  rights  of  man 
— and  on  account  of  that  very  feature  which  to 
many,  has  been  so  offensive — its  rigorous  doc- 
trine of  hdman  accountability.  Here,  then,  is 
the  idea  of  man  which  Christianity  gives  in  con- 
trast with  the  inferior  and  degrading  heathen  no- 
tions of  man.  He  is  a  being  but  begun  on  earth 
—  a  seed  only  planted  here  for  its  first  growth 
He  is  connected  with  God,  not  as  all  matter  is 
by  proceeding  from  creative  power,  but  by  par- 
taking the  divine  nature,  by  the  declared  personal 
affection  of  God,  witnessed  and  sealed  by  the 
presence  and  sufferings  of  the  world's  Redeemer- 
He  is  a  being  upon  whom  is  rolled  the  responsi- 
bility of  character  and  eternal  destiny  !  Of  such, 
a  creature  it  were  as  foolish  to  take  an  estimate, 
by  what  he  is  and  what  he  can  do  in  this  life,  as 
i;  would  be  to  estimate  by  an  eagle's  egg,  what 
the  old  eagle  is  worth,  with  wings  outspread 
far  above  the  very  thunder,  or  coming  down  up- 
on its  quarry  as  the  thunder  comes  !  It  is  the 
Future  that  gives  value  to  the  Present.  It  is  Im- 
mortality only  that  reaches  down  a  measure 
wherewith  to  gauge  a  man.  If  a  heathen  mea- 
sures, the  strong  are  strong,  and  the  weak  arc 
weak  :  the  rich,  the  favored,  must  rule,  and  their 
shadow  must  dwarf  all  others.  If  a  Christian, 
measures,  he  hears  a  voice  saying  :  "There  is 
'  neither  Jew  nor  Greek  ;  there  is  neither  bond 
•'nor  free;  thercis  neither  male  nor  female;  for 
"  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  \Vhosoever 
"  shall  do  the  will  of  my  Father,  which  is  in 
"  heaven,  the  same  is  my  mother,  and  sister,  and 
"  brother." 

These  are  the  things  that  give  value  to  man. 

It  is  not  to  be  said  that  there  is  no  difference 
between  men;  that  one  is  not  more  powerful  than 
another;  that  one  is  riot  richer  in  genius  than  an- 
other; that  one  is  not  more  valuable  to  society 
than  another;  that  education,  refinement,  skill, 
experience,  give  no  precedence  over  their  nega-  / 
tives.  But  God  takes  up  the  least  of  all  humau 
creatures,  and,  declares,  "inasmuch  as  ye  have 
done  it  unto  the  "hast  of  these,  ye  have  done  it 
unto  me."  In  a  household,  a  babe  is  vastly  less 
than  the  grown-up  children.  But  who  dare 
touch  it,  as  if  it  were  as  worthless  as  it  is  weak  ? 

So    God  pleads  his  own   relationship   to  the 
meanest  human  creation,  as  his  protection  from 


wrong ;  as  the  evidence  of  his  rights,  as  the  rea- 
son of  his  dignity !  There  is  something  of  God  in 
the  meanest  creature.  He  is  sacred  from  injury  ! 
In  these  truths  we  find  the  reason  why  Christi- 
anity always  takes  hold  so  low  down  in  human 
life.  Things  that  have  got  their  root  need  little 
from  the  gardener;  but  the  seeds,  and  tender 
sprours,  and"  difficult  plants,  require  and  get 
nurture. 

A  Christianity  that  takes  care  of  the  rich,  the 
strong,  the  governing  class,  and  neglects  the  poor, 
and  ignorant,  and  the  unrefined,  as  the  antitype 
of  Christ. 

It  is  in  this  direction  only,  that  the  declaration 
of  man's  equality  is  true.  No  heathen  nation 
could  say  that  "  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal  " 
— for  in  more  earthly  re?pects  it  is  false,  But  it 
is  a  truth  that  stands  only  and  firmly  in  those 
grand  relations  which  man  sustains  to  God,  to 
Eternity^  and  to  future  dignity — all  are  equally 
subjects  of  these.  Man  is  ungrown.  All  his  fruit 
*a  green.  If  he  must  stand  by  what  he  is,  how 
surely  must  he  be  given  over  to  weakness,  to 
abuse,  to  oppressions.  The  weak  are  the  natural 
prey  to  the  strong,  and  superiority  is  a  charter  for 
tyranny. 

But  if  he  be  an  heir,  waiting  for  an  inheritance 
of  God,  eternal  in  the  heavens,  woe  be  to  him  that 
dare  lay  a  finger  on  him  because  he  is  a  minor! 

I  dwell  the  longer  upon  this  view  because  it 
carries  the  world's  heart  in  it.  We  must  deepen 
our  thinkings  of  man,  and  bore  for  the  springs  of 
liberty  far  below  the  drainings  of  surface  strata, 
down  deep,  Artesian,  till  we  strike  something 
that  shall  be  beyond  winter  or  summer,  frost  or 
drouth. 

I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  a  doctrine  of  indi- 
vidual rights  nor  of  civil  liberty  that  can  stand 
outside  of  Cristianity.  They  are  to  be  seen  reveal- 
ed in  nature,  but  there  is  none  to  interrupt  them 
with  authority.  Christ  is  the  "World's  Emancipa- 
tor, for  he  hath  declared  that  men  belong  to  Him; 
and  an  oppressor  thus  becomes  a  felon,  a  robber, 
and  a  wronger  of  God,  in  the  person  of  every  poor 
and  wretched  victim! 

A  Christianity  that  tells  man  what  his  origin  is 
—of  God;  his  destiny,  to  God  again;  his  errand  on 
earth,  to  grow  toward  goodness,  and  make  the 
most  of  himself — this  Christianity  is  rank  rebel- 
lion in  despotisms,  and  insurrection  on  planta- 
tions. It  cannot  bo  preached  there. 

These  two  radical  theories  of  man — man,  a 
physical  creature  to  be  judged  by  effects  produced 
in  Time  ;  or  man,  a  spiritual  creature,  to  be  judg 


ed  by  the  development  to  which  he  is  destined, 
are  at  the  root  of  all  the  antagonisms  between  the 
pirit  of  northern  and  southern  institutions:  north- 
ern policy  and  southern  policy.  In  the  North, 
it  is  the  public  sentiment  of  the  people,  that  all 
men  are  born  free  and  equal ;  that  every  man  lias 
an  inalienable  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness,  forfeited  only  by  crime.  The  North 
believe  that  personal  and  political  liberty  are  not 
only  rights  of  man,  but  their  necessity,  that  man 
cannot  thrive  nor  develop,  with  the  true  propor- 
tions of  manhood,  without  liberty.  It  is  the 
northern  sentiment  that  a  man  must  be  prepared 
for  liberty,  and  that  the  act  of  birth  is  that  pre- 
paration; that  no  creature  lives  which  is  the  better 
for  oppression,  and  who  will  not  be  the  better  for 
freedom,  which  is  the  natural  air  appointed  for  the 
soul's  breathing.  The  North  disdains  every  pre- 
tense that  men  are  injured  by  sudden  liberty.  A 
famished  man  may  injure  himself  by  over-feed- 
ing; but  that  is  an  argument  not  against  food, 
but  against  famine.  It  is  the  northern  sentiment, 
and  justly  deduced  from  the  Christian  theory  of 
man,  that  society  should  redeem  all  its  own  chil- 
dren from  ignorance,  should  secure  their  growth, 
equip  them  for  citizenship,  make  all  the  influen- 
ces of  society  enure  to  the  benefit  of  the  mass  of 
men._jThe  southren  sentiment  is  the  reverse  ofi, 
this.  It  holds  that  all  men  are  not  born  free  andv 
equal ;  that  men  have  not  an  inalienable  right  to  j 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  and  I 
that  men  are  not  in  their  very  constitution  fitted 
for  liberty,  and  benefited  by  it.  They  hold  that 
liberty  is  an  attribute  of  power ;  that  it  is  a  bios-  j 
som  which  belongs  to  races,  and  not  to  mankind  ;  , 
that  a  part  were  born  to  rule,  and  a  part  were  or-  I 
dained  to  serve  ;  that  liberty  is  dangerous  to  the 
many ;  that  servitude,  the  most  rigorous,  is  a  bles- 
sing; that  it  accords  with  the  creative  intent  of 
God,  aud  with  his  revealed  institutions ;  that  a 
nation  cannot  be  homogeneous,  and  should  not 
aim  at  it ;  that  there  is  a  law  and  scale  of  grada- 
tion, on  which  the  top  is  privilege  and  authority, 
the  bottom  labor  and  obedience.  These  arc  the 
radical  theories  of  the  respective  sections  of  the 
land.  Men  often  are  profoundly  ignorant  of  the 
principles  which  control  their  policy,  as  a  ship  is 
unconscious  of  the  rudder  that  steers  her.  Many 
are  found,  both  North  and  South,  whose  con- 
duct over-rules  their  theory,  and  who  are  better 
or  worse  than  their  belief.  There  are  southern 
men  who  are  more  generous  than  their  theory, 
arid  there  are  northern  men  who  are  grossly  un- 
true to  the  northern  theory,  which,  with  their  lips, 


8 


they  profess.  There  are  southern  men  with  north- 
ern consciences,  and  there  are  northern  men  with 
southern  consciences.  But,  in  the  main,  these  re- 
spective theories  reign  and  regulate  public  proce- 
dure. There  is  not  a  man  so  poor  in  the  North, 
or  so  ignorant,  or  souseless,  as  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  Man,  by  religion,  by  civil  law,  and  by  public 
opinion.  Selfishness  and  pride,  avarice  and  cun- 
ning, anger  or  lust,  may  prey  upon  the  heedless- 
ness  or  helplessness  of  many.  Society  may  be  j 
full  of  evils.  But  all  these  things  are  not  se- ' 
quences  of  northern  doctrines,  but  violations  of  j 
them.  If  sharks  in  great  cities  consume  the  too  j 
credulous  emigrant;  if  usurers,  like  moths,  cut 
the  fabric  of  life  with  invisible  teeth;  if  landlords 
sack  their  tenements  and  pinch  the  tenant — all 
these  results  are  against  the  spirit  of  our  law, 
against  public  feeling,  and  they  that  do  such 
things  must  slink  and  burrow.  They  are  vermin 
.  that  run  in  the  walls,  and  peep  from  hiding-holes, 
and  we  set  traps  for  them  as  we  do  for  rats  or 
weazels.  But,  in  the  South,  the  subordination  of 
man,  to  man,  in  his  earnings,  his  skill,  his  time 
and  labor — in  his  person,  his  affections,  his  very 
children— is  a  part  of  the  theory  of  society,  drawn 
out  into  explicit  statutory  law,  coincident  with 
public  opinion,  and  executed  without  secrecy. 
A  net  spread  for  those  guilty  of  such  wrongs 
against  man,  would  catch  States,  and  Legisla- 
tures, Citizens,  Courts,  and  Constitutions. 

In  the  North  the  most  useless  pauper  that  bur- 
dens the  Aims-House — the  most  uncombed  for- 
eigner that  delves  in  a  ditch — the  most  abject 
creature  that  begs  a  morsel  from  door  to  door,  t* 
yd  a  man  ;  and  there  is,  not  in  theory  only,  but 
in  the  public  sentiment,  a  sacredness  of  rights, 
which  no  man,  except  by  stealth,  can  violate 
with  impunity.  There  is  no  other  law  for  the 
Governor  of  New-York  or  of  Massachusetts,  than 
for  the  beggar  in  your  streets.  That  which  pro- 
tects the  dwelling  and  the  property  of  the  rich 
man,  belongs  just  as  much  to  the  hovel  of  the 
beggar.  God  sends  but  one  sun,  and  it  is  the 
same  light  that  kindles  against  the  roof  of  a  man- 
sion, that  dawns  upon  the  thatch  of  a  hut.  The 
same  air  comes  to  each,  the  same  showers,  the 
same  seasons,  summer  and  winter.  And  as  is 
Nature,  so  in  the  North,  is  law,  and  the  distribu- 
tive benefits  of  society.  They  bathe  society  from 
top  to  bottom  !  The  rich,  the  learned,  the  re- 
fined, the  strong,  may  know  how  to  make  a  bet- 
ter use  of  the  air,  but  they  have  no  more  air  of 
privilege  to  breath,  than  the  poorest  wretch. 
In  the  South,  exactly  the  reverse  is  true,  not 


by  stealth,  not  by  neglect  of  a  recognized  princi- 
ple, but  as  the  result  of  men's  ideas,  and  by  or- 
ganized arrangements.  Touch  a  hireling's  wa- 
ges, in  the  North,  and  the  Law  stands  to  defend 
him  and  beat  you  down!  Take  the  laborer's 
wages  in  the  South,  and  the  law  stands  to  defend 
you,  and  beat  him  down. 

Beat  a  man,  in  the  North,  for  a  private  wrong 
done,  and  the  law  will  strike  you.  But  in  the 
South,  it  is  the  right  of  the  white,  unquestioned 
and  unquestionable  to  beat  every  third  person  in 
the  community. 

Let  the  proudest  mill-owner  break  but  the  skin 
of  the  poorest  operative  in  Lowell  or  Lawrence, 
and  both  law  and  public  sentiment,  alike,  would 
grasp  and  punish  him  ! 

But  in  the  South  the  law  refuses  to  look  at  any 
degree  of  cruelty  in  chastisements  upon  the  uni- 
versal laborer,  short  of  maiming  or  death,  and 
public  sentiment  is  but  little  better  than  the  law. 

The  laborer  in  the  North  answers  to  a  tribunal ; 
in  the  South,  to  a  master,  incensed,  passionate, 
vindictive  in  justice  executed  upon  all  symptoms 
of  resisting  manhood ! 

In  the  North,  nothing  is  more  sacred  than  a 
man's  family  and  his  children.  It  would  not  be 
possible  for  a  man  to  do  public  violence  to  a  fam- 
ily circle  without  vindictive  penalty.  Let  him 
separate  a  mother  from  her  daughters,  let  him  em- 
ploy a  hireling  ruffian  to  carry  off  the  boys  into 
the  country  and  parcel  them  out  there — let  him 
scatter  the  flock,  and  leave  the  children  mother- 
less, and  the  parents  childless,  and  what  do  you 
think  would  become  of  him  ? 

In  the  South  it  is  a  part  of  the  civil  rights  of 
men  to  do  these  things  whenever  they  please. 
And.  though  public  sentiment  is  better  than  law^ 
yet  as  no  public  sentiment  on  earth  is  a  match 
for  legalized  lust,  or  avarice,  or  the  grip  of  misfor- 
tune, these  things  are  continually  done,  and  re- 
morselessly. Cruelty,  chastity,  virtue,  do  not 
mean  the  same  things  in  the  South  as  in  the 
North.  A  man  is  not  blemished  by  deeds  and  in- 
dulgencies,  upon  a  plantation,  among  slaves, 
which  in  the  North,  would  strike  him  through 
with  infamy  and  house  him  in  the  penitentiary. 
In  the  South,  there  are  many  roads  leading 
from  the  top  of  society  to  the  bottom,  but  not 
one,  not  ONE  from  the  bottom  to  the  top. 

In  the  North,  if  the  citizen  choses  to  walk  in  it, 
there  is  a  road  from  every  man's  door  up  to  the 
Govenor's  chair  or  the  Presidential  seat ! 

It  needs  no  words,  now,  to  convince  you,  that 
out  of  such  different  theories  of  men,  there  will 


9 


exist  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  extremely> 
different  ideas  of  Society,  Government,  and 
Public  Policy. 

In  the  North,  first  in  order  of  consideration  is 
man,  the  individual  man  ;  next  the  family,  made 
of  those  of  common  blood,  and  by  far  the  strong- 
est, as  it  is  the  most  sacred  of  all  institutions. 
Then  comes  the  township,  which  presents  the 
only  spectacle  of  an  absolute  political  democracy. 
For,  here  only,  do  citizens  assemble  in  mass  and 
vote,  directly  and  not  by  representation.  Next 
comes  Society  at  large,  or  the  mass  of  citizens 
grouped  into  States.  And  in  Society,  in  the 
North,  there  are  no  classes  except  such  as  rise  out 
of  spontaneous  forces.  Wealth,  experience,  abil- 
ity set  men  above  their  fellows.  There  they 
stand  as  long  as  there  is  a  real  superiority.  But 
they  stand  there,  not  by  legal  force,  nor  to  exer- 
cise any  legal  power,  or  to  have  one  single  privi- 
lege or  prerogative,  which  does  not  belong  just  as 
much  to  every  citizen  clear  down  to  the  bottom . 
All  that  a  class  means  in  the  North  is,  that  when 
men  have  shown  themselves  strong  and  wiset 
men  give  them  honor  for  it.  Death  levels  it  all 
down  agaih.  Their  children  inherit  nothing. 
They  must  earn  for  themselves.  There  is  no  di- 
vision of  society  into  orders,  by  which  some  have 
privilege  and  some  have  not,  some  have  opportu- 
nity and  advantages  which  others  have  not. 

In  the  South,  society  is  divided  into  two  great 
and  prominent  classes — the  ruling  and  the  obey- 
ing— the  thinking  and  the  working.  The  labor 
of  the  South  is  performed  by  three  million  crea- 
tures who  represent  the  heathen  idea  of  man. 

All  the  benefits  that  have  accrued  to  man  from 
Christianity,  are  appropriated  and  monopolized 
by  the  white  population. 

Here  is  a  seam  that  no  sophistry  can  sew  up. 
Here  is  a  society  organized,  not  on  an  idea  of 
equal  rights,  and  of  inequalities  only  as  they 
spring  from  difference  of  worth,  but  on  an  idea 
of  permanent,  political,  organized  inequality 
among  men.  They  carry  it  so  far  that  the  theory 
of  Slave  law  regards  the  slave  not  as  an  inferior 
man,  governed,  for  his  own  good  as  well  as  for 
the  benefit  of  the  society  at  large,  but  it  pronoun- 
ces him,  in  reiterated  forms,  not  a  man  at  all,  but 
a  chattel. 

When  a  community  of  States,  by  the  most  po- 
tential voice  of  Law,  says  to  the  whole  bodv  of 
its  laboring  population,  Ye  are  not  men  and  shall 
not  be  ;  ye  are  chattels — it  is  absurd  to  speak 
about  kind  treatment — about  happiness.  It  is 
about  cattle  that  they  are  talking !  Our  vast 


body  of  laboring  me»do  not  yet  feel  the  force  of 
such  a  theory  of  human  society.  Buti  if  that 
political  system,  which  has  openly  been  making 
such  prodigious  strides  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and 
effecting,  secretly,  a  yet  greater  change  in  men's 

deas  of  society  and  government,  shall  gain  com- 
plete ascendancy,  they,  in  their  tnrn,  and  in  due 
time  will  know  and  see  the  difference  between  a 
Republican  Democracy  and  a  Republican  Aris- 
tocracy ? 

Out  of  such  original  and  radical  differences* 
there  must  flow  a  perpetual  contrast  and  opposi- 
tion of  policies  and  procedures,  in  the  operation 

f  society  and  of  business.  We  will  select  but  a 
few,  of  many,  subjects  of  contrast,  Work,  Educa- 
tion, Freedom  of  Speech  and  of  the  Press,  and 
Religion. 

I.  WORK.  Among  us,  and  from  the  begin- 
ning, Work  has  been  honorable.  It  has  been 
honorable  to  dig,  to  hew,  to  build,  to  reap,  to 
wield  the  hammer  at  the  forge,  and  the  saw  at  the 
bench.  It  has  been  honorable  because  our  peo- 
ple have  been  taught  that  each  man  is  set  to  make 
the  most  of  himself.  The  crown  for  every  victory 
gained  in  a  struggle  of  skill  or  industry  over  mat- 
ter is  placed  upou  the  soul ;  and  thus  among  a 
free  people  industry  becomes  education. 

It  is  the  peculiarity  of  Northern  labor,  that  it 
thinks.  It  is  intelligence  working  out  through 
the  hands.  There  is  more  real  thought  in  a  Yan- 
kee's hand  than  in  a  Southerner's  head.  This  is 
not  true  of  a  class,  or  of  single  individuals,  or  of 
single  States.  It  pervades  the  air.  It  is  North- 
ern public  sentiment.  It  springs  from  our  ideas 
of  manhood.  These  influences,  acting  through 
generations,  have  been  wrought  into  the  very- 
blood.  It  is  hi  the  stock.  Go  where  you  will  a 
Yankee  is  a  working  creature.  He  is  the  honey- 
bee of  mankind.  Only  Work  is  royal  among  us- 
It  carries  the  sceptre,  and  changes  all  nations  by 
its  touch,  opening  its  treasures  and  disclosing  its 
secrets. 

But  with  all  this  industry,  you  shall  find  no- 
where on  earth  so  little  drudging  work  as  in  the 
North.  It  is  not  the  servitude  of  the  hands  to 
material  nature.  It  is  the  glorious  exercise  of 
mind  upon  nature.  They  vex  nature  with  inces- 
sant importunities.  They  are  always  prying, and 
thinking,  and  trying. 

In  California,  gold  is  found  in  quartz  formations. 
But  in  New  England,  and  the  free  inventive 
North,  in  the  geology  of  industry,  gold  is  found 
everywhere — in  rye  straw  and  bonnets,  in  leather 
and  stone,  in  wool,  felts  and  cloths ;  in  wood,  in 


10 


stone,  and  in  very  ice.  It  is  wrapped  up  in  the 
beggar's  raiment,  which  unroll  in  our  mills  into 
paper— yesterday,  a  beggar's  feculant  rags;  to- 
day, a  newspaper,  conveying  the  world's  daily 
life  into  twenty  thousand  families.  And  so  great 
are  the  achievments  of  labor  that  everybody 
honors  it.  It  stands  among  us  as  an  invisible 
dignity.  Four  spirits  there  are  that  rule  in  New 
England — religion,  social  virtue,  intelligence,  and 
work  ;  and  this  last  takes  something  from  them 
all,  and  is  their  physical  exponent.  So  that  not 
only  is  work  honored  and  honorable,  but  the 
want  of  it  is  an  implied  discredit.  The  presump- 
tion is  always  against  a  man  who  docs  not  labor 

In  the  South,  the  very  reverse  is  true,  as  a  gen- 
eral proposition. 

It  is  true,  because  labor  is  the  peculiar  badge  of 
Slavery.  It  does  not  stand,  as  with  us,  a  symbol 
of  intelligence,  but  a  symbol  of  stupid  servitude 
It  is  the  business  of  those  whom  the  law  puts 
out  of  the  pale  of  society  and  accounts  chattels, 
and  who,  by  the  opinion  of  society,  are  at  the 
bottom,  and  under  the  feet  of  respectable  men. 
To  work  is,  therefore,  prima  facie  evidence  of 
degradation.  It  is  ranking  oneself  with  a  slave 
by  doing  a  slave's  tasks  ;  as  eating;  a  beggar's 
crust  with  him  would  be  a  beggar's  fellowship. 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  reason,  nor  the  chief- 
est  and  more  potent  reason  of  the  difference  be" 
tween  public  feeling  about  WORK,  North  and 
South. 

The  ideas  of  men  in  the  South  do  not  inspire 
any  such  tendency.  Men  are  judged  there  not 
by  what  they  are  and  are  to  be,  but  by  what  they 
can  noiv  do.  Only  such  things  as  have  an  echo 
in  them,  that  reverberate  in  the  ear  of  public 
opinion,  that  produce  an  effect  of  notice,  honor, 
advancement  in  the  OPINIONS  of  men,  are  relished. 
In  the  North,  men  are  educated  to  be  something 
— in  the  South  to  seem  something  The  North 
tends  to  doing — the  South  to  appearing.  And 
both  tendencies  spring  from  the  root  of  opposite 
theories  of  men  and  notions  of  society. 

And  it  is  this  inate,  hereditary  indisposition  to 
work  that,  after  all,  is  the  greatest  obstacle  to 
emancipation.  Laziness  in  the  South  and  money 
in  the  North,  are  the  bulwarks  of  Slavery!  To 
take  away  a  planter's  slaves  is  to  cut  off  his 
hands.  There  is  wlrere  he  keeps  his  work. 
There  is  none  of  it  in  himself.  And  it  is  this, 
too,  which  leads  to  the  contempt  which  southern 
people  feel  for  northern  men.  They  are  working 
men,  and  work  is  flavored  to  the  Southerner 
with  ideas  of  ignominy,  of  meanness,  of  vulgar 


lowness.  Neither  can  they  understand  how  a 
man  who  works  all  his  life  long  can  be  high- 
minded  and  generous,  intelligent  and  refined. 

Not  only  is  there  this  contrast  in  dignity  of 
work,  but  even  more — in  rights  of  industry. 
Work,  in  the  North,  has  responsibilities  that  are 
prodigious  educators.  We  ordain  that  a  man 
shall  have  the  fullest  chance,  and  then  he  shall 
have  the  results  of  his  activity.  He  shall  take  all 
he  can  make,  or  he  shall  take  the  whole  result  of 
indolence.  It  is  a  double  education.  It  inspires 
labor  by  hope  of  fruition,  and  intensifies  it  by  the 
fear  of  non -fruition.  The  South  have  their 
whole  body  of  laborers  at  work  without  either  re- 
sponsibility. They  cut  it  off  at  both  ends.  They 
virtually  say  to  the  slave,  in  reality,  "  Be  lazy,  for( 
''all  that  you  earn  shall  do  you  no  good;  be  lazy, 
"for  when  you  are  old  and  helpless  we  are  bound 
"to  take  care  of  you." 

It  is  this  apparent  care  for  the  helplessness  of 
slaves,  that  has  won  the  favor  of  many  northern 
men,  and  of  some  who  ought  to  have  known  bet- 
ter the  effect  of  taking  off  from  men  the  respon- 
sibility of  labor,  in  both  ways,  its  fruition  and  its 
penalty.  Once  declare  in  New  York  that  Gov- 
ernment would  take  care  of  poverty  and  old  age, 
so  as  to  make  it  honorable,  and  it  would  be  a  pre- 
mium upon  improvidence.  With  us,  it  is  ex- 
pected that  every  man  will  work,  will  earn,  will 
lay  up,  will  deliver  his  family  from  public  charity. 
There  is,  to  be  sure,  an  Alms  House  to  catch  all 
who,  by  misfortune  or  improvidence,  fall  through 
But  such  is  the  public  opinion  in  favor  of  person- 
al independence  springing  from  industry,  that  a 
native-born  American  citizen  had  rather  die  than 
go  to  an  Aims-House.  Foreigners  are  our  staple 
paupers.  Our  chanty  fieeds  the  poor  wretches 
whom  foreign  slavery  has  crippled  and  cast  upon 
us.  Bui  the  whole  South  is  a  vast  work-house 
for  the  slave  while  young,  and  a  vast  alms-house 
for  him  when  old,  and  neither  young  or  old,  is  he 
permitted  to  feel  the  responsibility  for  labor. 
And  this,  too,  explains  the  apparent  advantage 
which  the  South  has  over  the  North  in  the  mat- 
ter of  pauperism  and  distress.  The  northern 
system  intends  to  punish  those  who  will  not  work. 
It  it  not  a  system  calculated  for  slaves  nor  for 
lazy  men.  If  indolence  comes  under  it,  it'will 
take  the  penalty  of  not  working.  And  nowhere 
else  in  the  world  is  the  penalty  of  indolence,  and 
even  of  shiftlessness,  so  terrible  as  in  the  North, 
as  nowhere  else  is  the  remuneration  of  a  virtuous 
industry  so  ample  and  so  widely  diffused. 

II.  There  is  just  as  marked  a  contrast  upon 


11 


the  subject  of  education,  and  especially  of  Com- 
mon Schools.  In  the  North  we  have  COMMON 
Schools.  This  is  more  than  a  School.  It  is  more  j 
than  a  public  school.  It  is  a  Common  School,  in 
distinction  from  a  select,  or  class  school.  It  is  a 
public  provision  for  bringing  together,  upon  a 
perfect  equality,  the  children  of  the  ric'i  and  the 
poor,  the  noble  and  ignoble,  the  high  and  the  low. 
It  is  a  provision  of  our  institutions,  by  which  ev- 
ery generation  is  led  to  a  line  and  made  to  start 
equal  and  together.  There  will  be  inequality 
enough  as  soon  as  men  get  into  life.  Some  shoot 
ahead  ;  some,  like  dull  sailors  in  a  fleet,  are  drop- 
ped behind,  and  men  are  scattered  all  along  the 
ocean.  But  the  Common  School  gathers  up  their 
children  and  brings  them  all  back  again  to  take 
a  new  start  together.  Thus  our  schools  are  not 
mere*"  whetstones  to  the  intellect ;  they  are  insti- 
tutions for  evening  np  society  ;  they  resist  the 
tendency  to  separation  into  classes,  which  grows 
with  the  prosperity  of  a  community  ;  they  bind 
together,  in  cordial  sympathy,  all  classes  of  citi- 
zens. For  nothing  is  more  tenacious  than  school- 
day  remembrances,  and  the  last  things  that  we 
forget  are  playmates  and  schoolmates. 

The  South  may  have  schools.  But  never  Com- 
mon Schools.  The  South  has  no  common  peo- 
ple. There  can  be  States,  there,  but  never  Com- 
monwealths. There  is  no  common  ground,  where 
the  theory  of  society  grades  men  upon  a  perpen- 
dicular scale.  It  is  a  society  of  classes,  and  a  so- 
ciety of  classes  can  never  be  a  community.  When 
the  whole  labor  of  a  State  is  performed  by  n  de- 
graded class,  that  are  not  included  in  the  State 
as  citizens  or  social  beings,  it  is  impossible  but 
that  the  class  next  above  them  should  feel  the 
force  of  those  theories  and  ideas  which  have  pro- 
duced such  a  state  of  things.  It  is  so.  The  poor 
white  population  of  the  South  is  degraded.  They 
are  ignorant — they  are  not  fertile  in  thought  or 
labor.  They  are  not  so  low  as  the  slaves,  nor  so 
high  as  those  who  own  slaves.  There  are  three 
classes — the  top,  the  middle,  and  the  bottom  ; 
and  two  of  these,  the  top  and  bottom,  being  fixed 
and  legal,  the  middle  is  modified  by  them  both. 

In  such  a  Society,  there  cannot  be  a  Common 
School,  in  any  such  sense  as  we  mean  it.  Indeed, 
there  cannot  be  general  education  in  any  State 
where  ignorance  is  the  legal  condition  of  one-half 
the  population,  as  is  the  case  in  many  Southern 
States.  Ignorance  is  au  institution  in  the  South. 
It  is  a  political  necessity.  It  is  as  much  provided 
for  by  legislation  and  by  public  sentiment,  and 
guarded  by  enactments,  as  intelligence  is  in  the 


North.  It  must  be.  The  restrictions  which  keep 
it  from  the  slave  will  keep  it  from  the  whites,  ex- 
cepting, always,  the  few  who  live  at  the  top. 
There  cannot  be  an  atmosphere  of  intelligence- 
Slaves  would  be  in  danger  of  breathing  that. 
There  cannot  be  a"  common  public  sentiment,  a 
common  school,  nor  common  education.  Knowl- 
edge is  power,  not  only,  but  powder,  putting  the 
South  in  the  risk  of  being  blown  up,  by  careless 
handling  and  too  great  abundaiuje. 

III.  Closely  connected  with  this,  and  springing 
from  the  same  causes,  is  a  contrast  between  the 
North  and  the  South,  in  respect  to  free  speech 
and  open  discussion  by  lip  and  by  type. 

^ie  theory  of  the  North  is,  that  every  man  has 
the  right,  oa  every  subject,  to  the  freest  express- 
ion of  his  opinions,  and  the  fullest  right  to  urge 
them  upon  the  convictions  of  others.  It  is  not  a 
permission  of  law  ;  it  is  the  inherent  right  of  the 
individual.  Law  is  only  to  protect  the  citizen  in 
the  use  of  that  right. 

It  is  the  theory  of  the  North  that  society  is  as 
much  a  gainer  by  this  freedom  of  discussion  as  is 
the  individual. 

It  is  a  perpetual  education  of  the  people,  and  a 
safeguard  to  the  State.  There  is  the  utmost  lati- 
tude of  speech  and  discussion  among  our  citizens. 
The  attempt  to  abridge  it  would  be  so  infatuated 
that  the  most  dignified  Court  that  ever  sat  in 
Boston  would  become  an  object  of  universal  mer- 
riment and  ridicule,  that  should  presume  to  arrest 
and  cause  to  be  indicted  any  man  for  free  speak- 
ing in  old  Faueuil  Hall.  Merriment,  I  say,  for  who 
would  not  laugh  at  a  philosopher  who  would  set 
snares  for  the  stars,  and  fix  his  net  to  catch  the 
sun,  and  regulate  their  indiscreet  shining.  Dark- 
ness and  silence  are  excellent  for  knaves  and  ty- 
rants ;  but  the  attempt  to  command  the  one  or 
the  other  in  the  North,  changes  the  knave  to  an 
imbecile  and  the  tyrant  to  a  fool. 

But  should  any  power,  against  the  precedents 
of  the  past,  the  'spirit  of  our  people,  the  theory  of 
our  civil  polity  and  the  rights  of  individual  man 
succeed,  and  make  headway  against  free  speech, 
and  put  it  in  jeopardy,  it  would  convulse  the 
very  frame-work  of  society.  There  would  be  no 
time  for  a  revolution— there  would  be  an  eruption, 
and  fragmentary  Judges,  Courts  and  their  min- 
ions would  fly  upward  athwart  the  sky,  like 
stones  and  balls  of  flame  drives  from  the  vomit- 
ing crater  of  a  furious  volcano  !  No.  This  is  a 
right  like  the  right  of  breathing.  This  is  a  liber- 
ty that  broods  upon  us  like  the  atmo&phere.  The 
grand  American  doctrine  that  men  may  speak 


12 


what  they  think,  and  may  print  what  they  speak 
— that  all  public  measures  shall  have  free  public 
discussion — cannot  be  shaken;  and  any  party 
must  be  intensely  American  that  can  afford  to  de- 
stroy the  very  foundation  of  American  principle 
that  public  questions  shall  be  publicly  discussed, 
and  public  procedure  be  publicly  agreed  upon. 
Right  always  gains  in  the  light,  and  "Wrong  in 
the  dark.  An  owl  can  whip  an  eagle  in  the 
night ! 

The  South,  holding  a  heathen  theory  of  man — 
an  aristocratic  theory  of  society,— is  bound  to 
hold,  and  does  hold,  a  radically  opposite  practice 
in  respect  to  rights  of  speech  and  freedom  of  the 
press. 

There  is  not  freedom  of  opinion  in  the  South 
and  there  cannot  be. 

Men  may  there  talk  of  a  thousand  things — of 
all  religious  doctrines,  of  literature,  of  art,  of  pub- 
lic political  measures — but  no  man  has  liberty  to 
talk  as  he  pleases  about  the  structure  of  southern 
society,  and  apply  to  the  real  facts  of  southern 
life  and  southern  internal  questions  that  searching 
investigation  and  public  exposure  which,  in  the 
North,  brings  every  possible  question  to  the  bar 
of  public  opinion,  and  makes  society  boil  like  a 
pot! 

Yes,  you  may  speak  of  Slavery,  if  you  will  de- 
fend it ;  you  may  preach  about  it,  if  you  shingle 
its  roof  with  Scripture  texts;  but  you  may  not 
talk,  nor  preach,  nor  print  abolition  doctrines, 
though  you  believe  them  with  the  intensity  of 
inspiration  ! 

/"  The  reason  given  is,  that  it  will  stir  up  insur- 
rection. And  so  it  will.  It  is  said  that  free 
speech  is  inflammatory.  So  it  is.  That  it  would 
bring  every  man's  life  in  the  South  into  jeopar- 
dy ;  that,  in  self-defence,  they  most  limit  and 
regulate  the  expression  of  opinion.  But  what  is 
that  theory  of  Government,  and  what  is  the  state 
of  society  under  it,  in  which  free  speech  and  free 
discussion  are  dangerous  ?  It  is  the  boast  of  the 
North,  not  alone  that  speech  and  discussion  are 
free,  but  that  we  have  a  society  constructed  in  ev- 
ery part  so  rarely,  wisely,  and  justly,  that  they 
can  endure  free  speech  ;  no  file  can  part,  but  only 
polish.  We  turn  out  any  law,  and  say,  Discuss 
it!  that  it  may  be  the  stronger!  We  challenge 
scrutiny  for  our  industry,  for  our  commerce>  for 
our  social  customs,  for  our  municipal  affairs,  for 
our  State  questions,  for  all  that  we  believe,  and 
all  that  we  do,  and  everything  that  we  build. 
We  are  not  in  haste  to  be  born  in  respect  to  any 
feature  of  life.  We  say — probe  it,  question  it, 


put  fire  to  it.  We  ask  the  experience  of  the  past 
to  sit  and  try  it.  We  ask  the  ripest  wisdom  of  the 
present  to  test  and  analyze  it.  We  ask  enemies 
to  plead  all  they  know  against  it.  We  challenge 
the  whole  world  of  ideas,  and  the  great  deep  of 
human  interests  to  come  up  upon  anything  that 
belongs,  or  is  to  belong,  to  public  affairs.  And 
then,  when  a  truth, a  policy,  or  a  procedure  comes 
to  birth,  from  out  of  the  womb  of  such  discussion, 
we  know  that  it  will  stand.  And  when  our  whole 
public  interests  are  rounded  out  and  built  up,  we 
are  glad  to  see  men  going  around  and  about, 
marking  well  our  towers,  and  counting  our  bul- 
warks. May  it  do  them  good  to  see  such  archi- 
tecture and  engineering  !  And  it  is  just  this  dif- 
ference that  distinguishes  the  North  and  the 
South.  We  have  institutions  that  will  stand  pub- 
lic and  private  discussion — they  have  not.%  We 
will  not  have  a  law,  or  custom,  or  economy,  which 
cannot  be  defended  against  the  freest  inquiry 
Such  a  rule  would  cut  them  level  as  a  mowed 
meadow  !  They  live  in  a  crater,  forever  dreading 
the  signs  of  activity.  They  live  in  a  powder 
magazine.  No  wonder  they  fear  light  and  fire. 
It  is  the  plea  of  Wrong  since  the  world  began- 
Discussion  would  unseat  the  Czar;  a  free  press 
would  dethrone  the  ignoble  Napoleon  ;  free 
speech  would  revolutionize  Rome.  Freedom  of 
thought  and  freedom  of  expression  !  they  are 
mighty  champions,  that  go  with  unsheathed 
swords  the  world  over,  to  redress  the  weak,  to 
right  the  wronged,  to  pull  down  evil  and  build  up 
good.  And  a  State  that  will  be  damaged  by  free 
speech  ought  to  be  damaged.  A  King  that  can- 
not keep  his  sejit  before  free  speech  ought  to  be 
unseated.  An  order  or  an  institution  that  dreads 
freedom  of  the  press  has  reason  to  dread  it.  If 
the  South  would  be  revolutionized  by  free  dis- 
cussion, how  intensely  does  that  fact  show  her 
dying  need  of  revolution  !  She  is  a  dungeon,  full 
of  damps  and  death-air.  She  needs  light  and 
ventilation.  And  the  only  objection  is,  that  if 
there  were  light  and  air  let  in,  it  would  no  longer 
be  a  dungeon. 

IV.  There  is  a  noticeable  contrast  between 
Northern  and  Southern  ideas  of  Religion. 

We  believe  God's  revealed  word  to  contain  the 
influence  appointed  for  the  regeneration  and  full 
development  of  every  human  being,  and  that  it 
is  to  be  employed  as  God's  universal  stimulant 
to  the  human  soul,  as  air  and  light  are  the  uni- 
versal stimulants  of  vegetation. 

We  preach  it  to  arouse  the  whole  soul ;  we 
preach  it  to  fire  the  intellect,  arid  give  it  wings 


13 


by  which  to  com  pass  knowledge  ;  we  preach  it  to 
touch  every  feeling  with  refinement,   to  soften 
rudeness  and  enrich  affections  ;  we  build  the  fam- 
ily with  it ;  we  sanctify  love,  and  purge  out  lust  ; 
we  polish  every  relation  of  life  ;  we  inspire  a 
cheerful  industry  and  whet  the  edge  of  enterprise, 
and  then  limit  them  by  the  bonds  of  justice  and 
by  the  moderation  of  a  faith  which  looks  into  the 
future  and  the  eternal.    We  teach  each  man  that 
he  is  a  child  of  God  ;  that  he  is  personally  one 
for  whom  the  Savior  died ;  we  teach  him  that  he 
is  known  and  spoken  of  in  heaven,  his  name  call 
ed;  that  angels  are  sent  out  upon  his   path  to 
guard  and  to  educate  him  ;  we  swell  within  him 
to  the  uttermost  every  aspiration,  catching  the 
first  flame  of  youth  and  feeding  it,  until  the  whole 
heart  glows  like  an  altar,  and  the  soul  is  a  temple 
bright  within,  and  sweet,  by  the  incense-smoke 
and  aspiring  flame  of  perpetual  offerings  and  di- 
vine sacrifices.    We  have  never  done  with  him. 
We  lead  him  from  the  cradle  to  boyhood ;  we 
take  him   then   into   manhood,  and   guide  him 
through  all  its  passes  ;  we  console  him  in  age 
and  then  stand,  as  he  dies,  to  prophesy  the  com 
ing  heaven,  until  the  fading  eye  flashes  again,  and 
the  unhearing  ear  is  full  again  ;  for  from  the  oth 
er  side  ministers  of  grace  are  coming,  and  he  be 
holds  them,  and  sounds  on  earth  and  sights  are 
not  so  much  lost  as  swallowed  up  in   the  glory 
and  the  melody  of  the  heavenly  joy  1 

Now  tell  me  whether  there  is  any  preaching  of 
the  Gospel  to  the  slave,  or  whether  there  can  be. 
and  he  yet  remain  a  slave  ?  We  preach  the  Gos- 
pel to  arouse  men,  they  to  subdue  them  ;  we  to 
awaken,  they  to  soothe ;  we  to  inspire  self-reli- 
ance, they  submission ;  we  to  drive  them  forward 
in  growth,  they  to  repress  and  prune  down 
growth ;  we  to  convert  them  into  men,  they  to 
make  them  content  to  be  beasts  of  burden  I 

Is  this  all  that  the  Gospel  has  ?  When  cred 
ulous  ministers  assure  us  that  slaves  have  the 
means  of  grace,  do  they  mean  that  they  have 
euch  teaching  as  we  have  ?  Or  that  there  is  any 
euch  ideal  in  preaching  ?  The  power  of  religion 
with  us  is  employed  to  set  men  on  their  feet ;  to 
make  them  fertile,  self-sustaining,  noble,  virtu- 
ous, strong,  and  to  build  up  society  of  men,  each 
one  of  whom  is  large,  strong,  capacious  of  room 
and  filled  with  versatile  powers. 

Religion  with  them  does  no  such  thing.    It 
doth  the  reverse. 

With  them  it  is  Herod  casting  men  into  pris- 
on.   With  us  it  is  the  angel,  appearing  to  lead 
*   them  out  of  prison  and  set  them  free !    In  short 


religion  with  us  is  emancipation  and  liberty  ;  with 
them  it  is  bondage  and  contentment. 


It  is  very  plain  that  while  nominally  republi- 
can institutions  exist  in  both  the  North  and  South, 
they  are  animated  by  a  very  different  spirit,  and 
used  for  a  different  purpose.  In  the  North,  they 
aim  at  the  welfare  of  the  whole  people  ;  in  the 
South  they  are  the  instruments  by  which  a  few 
control  the  many.  In  the  North,  they  tend  to- 
ward Democracy  ;  in  the  South,  toward  Oligar- 
chy. 

It  is  equally  plain  that  while  there  may  be  a 
union  between  Northern  and  Southern  States,  it 
is  external,  or  commercial,  and  not  internal  and 
vital,  springing  from  common  ideas,  common 
ends,  and  common  sympathies.  It  is  a  union  of 
merchants  and  politicians  and  not  of  the  people.  S 

Had  these  opposite  and  discordant  systems 
been  left  separate  to  work  out  each  its  own  re- 
sults, there  would  have  been  but  little  danger  of 
collision  or  contest. 

But  they  are  politically  united.      They  come 
together  into  one  Congress.      There  these  antag- 
onistic principles,  which  creep  with  subtle  influ- 
ence through  the  very  veins  of  their  respective 
States,  break  out  into  open  collision  upon  every 
question  of  national  policy.    And,  since  the  world 
began,  a  republican  spirit  is  unfit  to  secure  pow- 
er.    It  degenerates  it  in  the   many.    But   an 
aristocratic  spirit  always  has  aptitude  and  impulse 
toward  power.    It  seeks  and  grasps  it  as  natu- 
rally as  a  hungry  lion  prowls  and  graspsits  prey. 
For  fifty  years  the  imperious  spirit  of  the  South 
has  sought  and  gained  power.      It  would  have 
been  of  but  little  consequence  were  that  power 
still  republican.      The  seat  of  empire  may  be  in- 
differently on  the  Massachusetts  Bay  or  the  Ohio, 
on  the  Lakes  or  on  the  Gulf;  if  it  be  the  same  em- 
pire, acting  in  good  faith  for  the  same  democrat- 
ic ends. 

But  in  the  South  the  growth  of  power  has 
been  accompanied  by  a  marked  revolution  in  po- 
litical faith,  until  now  the  theory  of  Mr.  Calhoun, 
once  scouted,  is  becoming  the  popular  belief. 
And  that  theory  differs  in  nothing  from  outright 
European  Aristocracy,  save  in  the  forms  and  in- 
struments by  which  it  works. 

The  struggle,  then,  between  the  North  and  the 
South  is  not  one  of  sections,  and  of  parties,  but 
of  Principles  —  of  principles  lying  at  the  founda- 
tions of  governments — of  principles  that  cannot 
coalesce,  nor  compromise  ;  that  must  hate  each 
other,  and  contend,  until  the  one  shall  drive  out 
the  other. 


14 


Oh  !  how  little  do  men  dream  of  tlie  things  that 
are  transpiring  about  them  !  In  Luther's  days, 
how  little  they  knew  the  magnitude  of  the  results 
pending  that  controversy  of  fractious  monk  and 
haughty  pope!  How  little  did  the  frivolous 
courtier  know  the  vastness  of  that  struggle  in 
which  Hampden,  Milton  and  Cromwell  acted ! 
We  are  in  just  such  another  era.  Dates  will  be- 
gin from  the  period  in  which  we  live  ! 

Do  not  think  that  all  the  danger  lies  in  that 
bolted  cloud  which  flashes  in  the  Southern  hori- 


is  as  good  or  better  for  three  millions  of  laboring 
men  as  liberty.  He  has  instituted  a  formal  com- 
parison between  the  state  of  society  and  the  con- 
dition of  a  laboring  population  in  a  slave  systen; 
and  thosa  in  a  free  State,  and  left  the  impressio  i 
on  every  page  that  Liberty  works  no  better  re 
suits  than  servitude,  and  that  it  has  mischiefs  and 
inconveniences  which  Slavery  altogether  avoids. 
Read  that  book  in  Faneuil  Hall,  and  a  thou- 
sand aroused  and  indignant  ghosts  would  come 
flocking  there,  as  if  they  heard  the  old  roll-call  of 


zon.     There  is  decay,  and   change,  here   in  the  |  Bunker  Hill.     Yea,  read  those  doctrines  on  Bun- 


North.     Old  New-England,  that  suckled  Amer- 
ican  liberty,  is  now  suckling  wolves  to  devour  it 

What  shall  we  think  when  a  President  of  old 
Dartmouth  College  goes  over  to  Slavery,  and 
publishes  to  the  world  his  religious  conviction  of 
the  rightfulness  of  it,  as  a  part  of  God's  discipli- 
nary government  of  the  world — wholesome  to 
man,  as  a  punishment  of  bins  which  he  never  com- 
mitted, and  to  liquidate  the  long  arrearages  of 
Ham's  everlasting  debt!  and  avowing  that,  under 
favorable  circumstances,  he  would  buy  and  own 
slaves!  A  Southern  volcano  in  New-Hampshire, 
pouring  forth  the  lava  of  despotism  in  that  incor- 
rupt, and  noble  old  fortress  of  liberty  !  What  a 
College  to  educate  our  future  legislators  ! 

What  are  we  to  think,  when  old  Massachusetts, 
the  mother  of  the  Revolution,  every  league  of 
whose  soil  swells  with  the  tomb  of  some  heroic 
patriot,  shall  make  pilgrimages  through  the 
South,  and,  after  surveying  the  lot  of  slaves  un- 
der a  system  that  turns  them  out  of  manhood, 
pronounces  them  chatties,  denies  them  marriage, 
makes  their  education  a  penal  and  penitentiary 
offence,  makes  no  provision  for  their  religious  cul- 
ture, leaving  it  to  the  stealth  of  good  men,  or  the 
interest  of  those  who  regard  religion  as  a  curry- 
comb, useful  in  making  sleek  and  nimble  beasts 
— a  system  which  strikes  through  the  fundamen- 
tal instincts  of  humanity,  and  wounds  nature  in 
the  core  of  the  human  heart,  by  taking  from  pa- 
rents all  right  in  their  children,  and  leaving  the 
family,  like  a  bale  of  goods,  to  be  unpacked,  and 
parceled  out  and  sold  in  pieces,  without  any  oth- 
er protection  than  the  general  good  nature  of  easy 
citizens :  what  shall  be  thought  of  the  condition 
of  the  public  mind  in  Boston,  when  one  of  her 
most  revered,  and  personally,  deservedly  beloved 
pastors,  has  come  up  so  profoundly  ignorant  of 
what  we  thought  every  child  knew,  that  he  comes 
home  from  this  pilgrimage,  to  teach  old  New- 
England  to  check  her  repugnance  to  Slavery,  to 
dry  up  her  tears  of  sympathy,  and  to  take  com- 
ortin  the  assurance  that  Slavery,  on  the  whole, 


ker  Hill — and  would  it  flame  or  quake  ?  No.  It 
would  stand  in  silent  majesty,  pointing  its  graniU 
finger  up  to  Heaven  and  to  God — an  everlasting 
witness  against  all  Slavery,  and  all  its  abettors  or 
defenders. 

At  this  moment,  the  former  parties  that  have 
stood  in  counterpoise  have  fallen  to  pieces.  And 
we  are  on  the  eve,  and  in  the  very  act,  of  recon- 
structing our  parties.  One  movement  there  is 
that  calls  itself  American.  Oh,  that  it  were  or 
or  would  be!  Never  was  an  opening  so  auspi- 
cious for  a  true  American  party  that,  embracing 
the  principles  of  American  institutions,  should 
enter  our  Temple  of  Liberty  and  drive  out  thence 
not  merely  the  interloping  Gentiles,  but  the  mon- 
ey-changers, and  those,  also,  who  sell  oxen,  and 
cattle  and  slaves  therein. 

It  is  not  the  question  whether  a  Northern  party 
should  be  a  party  of  philanthropy,  or  of  propagan 
dism,  or  of  abolition.  It  is  simply  a  question 
whether,  for  fear  of  these  things,  they  will  ignore 
and  rub  out  of  their  creed  every  principle  of  hu- 
man rights  ! 

I  am  not  afraid  of  foreigners  among  us.  Nev- 
ertheless, our  politicians  have  so  abused  us 
through  them,  that  I  am  glad  that  a  movement  is 
on  foot  to  regulate  the  conduct  of  new-comers 
among  us,  and  oblige  them  to  pass  through  a  lon- 
ger probation  before  they  become  citizens.  In  so 
far  as  I  understand  the  practical  measures  propos- 
ed and  set  forth  in  the  Message  of  the  Governor 
of  Massachusetts,  1  approve  them. 

But  I  ask  you,  fellow-citizens,  whether  the  sim- 
ple accident  of  birth  is  a  basis  broad  enough  for 
a  permanent  National  party?  Is  it  a  principle, 
even?  It  is  a  mere  fact. 

Ought  we  not  to  look  a  little  at  what  a  man  is 
after  he  is  born,  as  well  as  at  the  place  where? 
Especially,  when  we  remember  that  Arnold  was  * 
born  in  Connecticut  and  La  Fayette  in  France. 

If  then,  a  party  is  American,  ought  it  not  to  be 
because  it  represents  those  principles  which  are 


15 


fundamental  to  American  Institutions  and  to 
American  policy?  principles  which  stand  in  con- 
trast with  European  Institutions  and  policy  ! 

"Which  of  these  two  theories  is  the  American  ? 
The  North  has  one  theory,  the  South  another  ; 
which  of  them  is  to  be  called  the  American  idea  ? 
Which  is  American — Northern  ideas  or  Southern 
ideas  ?  That  which  declares  all  men  free  &c.» 
or  that  which  declares  the  superior  races  free,  and 
the  inferior,  Slaves  ? 

That  which  declares  the  right  of  every  -man  to 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness — or  that 
which  declares  the  right  of  strength  and  intelli- 
gence to  subordinate  weakness  and  ignorance  ? 

That  which  ordains  popular  education,  freedom 
of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press,  public  discussion 
— or  that  which  makes  these  a  prerogative,  yield- 
ed to  a  class  but  denied  to  masses  ? 

That  which  organizes  Society  as  a  Democracy 
and  Government,  and  Republic — or  that  which 
organizes  Society  as  an  Aristocracy,  and  Govern- 
ment as  an  Oligarchy  ? 

Which  shall  it  be — that  of  organized  New  Eng- 
land townships,  schools,  and  churches — that  re- 
sisted taxation  without  representation — that  cov- 
ered Boston  harbor  with  tea,  as  if  all  China  had 
shook  down  her  leaves  there — which  spake  frogo 
Faneuil  Hall,  and  echoed  from  Bunker  Hill ;  or 
that  policy  which  landed  slaves  on  the  Chesa- 
peake— that  has  changed  Old  Virginia  from  a  land 
of  heroes  into  a  breeding-ground  of  slaves — that 
has  broken  down  boundaries,  and  carried  war 
over  our  lines,  not  for  liberty,  but  for  more  terri- 
tory for  slaves  to  work,  that  the  owners  might 
multiply,  and  the  Aristocracy  of  America  stand 
on  the  shores  of  two  oceans,  an  unbroken  bound 
all  between  ? 

If  a  National  American  party  is  ever  formedt 
by  leaving  out  the  whole  question  of  Human 
Rights,  it  will  be  what  a  man  would  be — his  soul 
left  out ! 

An  American  National  party — Liberty  left  out ! 

An  American  party — Human  Rights  left  out ! 

Gentlemen,  such  a  party  will  stink  with  disso- 
lution before  you  can  get  it  finished.  No  Mason- 
ry  can  make  it  solid — no  art  can  secure  it.  No 
anchor  that  was  ever  forged  in  infernal  sty  thy  can 
go  deep  enough  into  political  mud  to  hold  it ! 

If  you  rear  up  an  empty  name  ;  if  you  take 
.hat  revered  name  American,  all  the  world  over 
adiant  and  revered,  as  the  symbol  of  human 
•jghts  and  human  happiness — if  you  sequester 
,  rind  stuff  that  name  with  the  effete  doctrines  of 
lespotism,  do  you  believe  you  can  supplicate  from 


any  gods  the  boon  of  immortality  for  such  an  un- 
baptized  monster  ?  No.  It  may  live  to  ravage 
our  heritage  for  a  few  days,  but  there  is  a  spirit 
of  liberty  that  lives  among  us,  and  that  shall  live 
And  aroused  by  that  spirit,  there  shall  spring  up 
the  yet  unaroused  hoists  of  men  that  have  not 
bowed  the  knee  to  Baal — and  we  will  war  it  to 
the  knife,  and  knife  to  the  hilt. 

For,  IT  SHALL  be  ;  America  shall  be  free! 

We  will  take  that  for  our  life's  enterprise.  Dy- 
ing, we  will  leave  it  a  legacy  to  our  children,  and 
they  shall  will  it  to  theirs,  until  the  work  is  done, 
our  fathers'  prayers  are  answered,  and  this  whole 
land  stands  clothed  and  in  its  right  mind — a 
symbol  of  what  the  earthly  fruits  of  the  Gospej 
are  ! 

If  a  National  party  is  now  to  be  formed,  what 
shall  it  be,  and  what  shall  its  office  be  ? 

It  shall  be  a  peacemaker,  say  sly  politicians. 
Yes,  peace  by  war.  But  an  American  party, 
seeking  peace  with  the  imperious  Aristocracy  by 
yielding  everything  down  to  the  root— one  would 
think  no  party  need  be  formed  to  do  that  Ju- 
das did  as  much  without  company.  Arnold  did 
that  without  companions. 

An  American  National  party  must  either  be  a 
piebald  and  patched-up  party,  earn  jng  in  its  en- 
trails the  mortal  poison  of  two  belligerent 
schemes,  former  legendary  disputes,  and  agita- 
tion, and  furious  conflict ;  or,  to  be  a  real  national 
party,  it  must  first  be  a  Northern  party  and  be- 
come national.  We  must  walk  again  over  the 
course  of  history.  Here  in  the  North  Liberty 
began.  Its  roots  are  with  us  yet.  All  its  associ- 
ations and  all  its  potent  institutions  are  with  us. 
Having  once  given  forth  this  spirit  of  liberty, 
now  fading  out  of  our  Southern  States,  the  North 
should  again  come  forth  and  refill  the  poisoned 
veins  that  have  been  drinkfng  the  hemlock  of 
Despotism  with  the  new  blood  of  Liberty  !  Let 
us  give  sap  to  the  tree  of  Liberty,  thai  it  may  not 
wither  and  die  ! 

When  Hercules  was  born,  but  yet  a  child,  the 
jealous  Junot  sent  two  serpents  to  his  cradle  to 
destroy  him.  Hercules  or  the  serpents  must  die. 
^Both  could  not  lie  in  the  same  bed.  He  seized 
them  and  suffocated  them  by  his  grip,  while  Lis 
poor  brother,  Iphiclus,  filled  the  house  with  his 
shrieks.  An  infernal  Juno,  envious  of  the  des- 
tined greatness  of  this  country,  hath  sent  this 
serpent  upon  it !  What  shall  we  do  ?  Shall  we 
imitate  Hercules  or  Iphiclus  ?  Shall  we  choke 
it ;  or  shall  we  form  a  timid  National  party  and 
shriek/ 


!6 


Gentlemen,  you  will  never  have  rest  from  this 
subject  until  there  is  a  victory  of  principles. 
Northern  ideas  must  become  American,  or  South- 
ern ideas  must  become  American,  before  there 
will  be  peace.  If  the  North  gives  to  the  Nation 
her  radical  principles  of  human  rights  and  dem- 
ocratic Governments,  there  will  be  the  peace  of 
an  immeasurable  prosperity.  If  the  South  shall 
give  to  the  country  a  policy  derived  from  her 
heathen  notions  of  men,  there  will  be  such  a 
peace  as  men  have  overdrugged  with  opium,  that 
deep  lethargy  just  before  the  mortal  convulsions 
and  death  !  All  attempts  at  evasion,  at  adjourn- 
ing, at  concealing  and  compromising  are  in  vain. 
The  reason  of  our  long  agitation  is,  not  that  rest- 
less Abolitionists  are  abroad,  that  ministers  will 
meddle  with  improper  themes,  that  parties  are 
disregarded  of  the  country's  interest.  These  are 
symptoms  only,  not  the  disease  ;  the  effects,  not 
the  causes. 

Two  great  powers  that  will  not  live  together 
are  in  our  midst,  and  tugging  at  each  other's 


throats.  They  will  search  each  other  out,  though 
you  separate  them  a  hundred  times.  And  if  by 
an  insane  blindness  you  shall  contrive  to  put  off 
the  issue,  and  send  this  unsettled  dispute  down, 
to  your  children,  it  will  go  down,  gathering  vol- 
ume and  strength  at  every  step,  to  waste  and 
desolate  their  heritage.  Let  it  be  settled  now. 
Clear  the  place.  Bring  in  the  champions.  Let 
them  put  their  lances  in  rest  for  the  charge. 
Sound  the  trumpet,  and  God  save  the  rigid  ! 

The  latter  portion  of  the  lecture  was  frequently 
interrupted  by  boisterous  applause. 

After  Mr.  Beecher  had  taken  his  seat,  there  were 
loud  calls  for  Mr.  GIDDIXGS,  whereupon  that  gen- 
tleman came  forward  and  said  that  he  had  not 
come  to  make  a  speech,  but,  like  a  good  Metho- 
dist brother,  he  would  add  his  exhortation  to  the 
excellent  sermon  of  his  clerical  friend.  In  con- 
clusion, Mr.  Giddings  besought  all  to  enter  hear- 
tily into  the  contest  for  Freedom — to  trust  in  God 
and  keep  their  powder  dry  !  [Loud  applause,] 


-. 


